Print shops are generally capable of supplying printing services to meet a variety of customer demands. For example, print shops are often used to print documents for mass-mailing (e.g., customer bills, advertisements, etc.). Because print shops engage in printing on a scale that is hard to match, their customer base is often varied and may include both small businesses as well as large institutions (e.g., credit card companies, banks, etc.). Because print shops serve a variety of customers, they are often tasked with processing jobs that have varying printing formats, delivery dates, and media requirements.
Print shops often include a number of high-volume printers capable of printing incoming jobs quickly and at high quality as well as post-printing devices that are used to process the printed documents of each job (e.g., cutters, inserters, mailers, etc.). In addition, print shops may provide digital/web publishing, e-mail, or other multimedia services to customers. Print shops therefore often use a centralized server that coordinates activity between printers and other devices of the print shop. However, print shop operators continue to desire enhanced servers capable of managing print jobs that have complex requirements.